Trouble Brewing in the House of Sand
Chapter 6: Rosemary's Baby
A/N: I was kind of tired when I wrote Rosemary's last speech... sorry.
"How far apart are the contractions?" asked the obstetrician.
"Never mind the goddam contractions, someone kill me!" demanded Rosemary.
"Now, sweetie," the Kazekage started. Rosemary punched him below the belt with all the strength born of being in a great deal of pain and not wanting some man who had never been thorough anything so intense as giving birth to a demon baby try to tell you it was all right. It was very clear to Rosemary that things were NOT all right.
"Don't you 'sweetie' me!" she yelled as her husband doubled over. "When this kid is out, we are never having sex ever again! AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGH!"
"She's doing fine," the doctor said.
"You're doing fine," relayed the Kazekage.
"No, I am NOT doing fine! If I was doing fine, I'd be a virgin!" yelled Rosemary. "Why am I doing this? I HATE kids!"
"Try not to think about the pain... what are we going to name it?"
"Prudence Virginia Chastity if it's a girl, and if it's a boy, we're going to castrate it so it can't grow up and do this to some poor girl!"
The doctor winced. The Kazekage laughed nervously. "She's just joking... I think."
Chiyo, who was watching from the sidelines and having a cigarette (good health system they've got in Suna), commented, "Maybe you two should consider couples' counseling."
"Shut up you old washed up hag!" Rosemary shouted. She and Chiyo had decided to hate each other almost immediately after their introduction. "There's nothing wrong with my marriage that a vasectomy wouldn't fix!"
"I think we're all saying some stuff we're going to regret here," the Kazekage started.
Rosemary tried to swing at him again. "If I live through this, Jafar," she warned.
"Of course you're going to live, Anita."
"You'd better pray I don'--AHHHG!"
"Almost there," the doctor assured her, wondering to himself why there seemed to be so much sand in the room suddenly.
"AAROOOGAH!" replied Rosemary.
"So... names..." the Kazekage once again tried to breach the topic.
Rosemary started to say, "Gawd, just can it, Jafar," but a sudden strong contraction, followed by a determined growl, stopped her, so it came out as a mangled, "Ga— AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH- RRRRRRRAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" And then she passed out.
"Gaara it is," shrugged the Kazekage, filling out the birth certificate and ignoring the doctor and Chiyo (who had suddenly become concerned) scurrying around checking vital signs.
"This isn't good..." the doctor muttered. The Kazekage looked up.
"What? What isn't good?"
"... Something's wrong... We can save the baby, or..." the doctor bit his lip. "Try to save her... one or the other."
"Wha– what do you mean? I thought she was doing fine! You said—,"
"I don't know what's wrong... I've never seen anything like this before..."
"I'll tell you what it is, if you want," Chiyo threw in. "The seal we used on that teakettle ripped up her internal organs pretty good... she's been kept alive this far on its' chakra, but, well, now she's probably dying a slow and painful death," she shrugged.
"Stupid teakettle," whispered the Kazekage, squeezing his comatose wife's hand. "If it comes down to it... save the baby."
"We'll do everything we can for both of them," the doctor assured him. The "we" was something of a lie; Chiyo was planning on doing the bare minimum.
It is probably for the best that Rosemary didn't wake up until the end, in time to have her new son handed to her.
"Hello, poppet," she whispered weakly, tapping its nose with her finger. "Aren't you a cutie-muffin!" she smiled dopely. "Am I losing blood?"
"Probably," Chiyo said.
"Oh... I'm dying, aren't I?"
"Yup," Chiyo said.
Rosemary glared at her. "Such a compassionate person...I bet your grandkids just loved you." Chiyo flipped her off, and Rosemary went back to talking to the baby. "Poppet, I'm not going to be around much longer, so listen up. Don't trust anyone in this village, ok? 'Cause they're all no-good dirty rotten— what's with all this sand?"
"Don't ask me, I'm just the boy's father," the Kazekage said.
"Hmm... well, anyway, you look out for people from Suna, they're all miserable little scoundrels. All of them. Every last one of them... even me. Forgive me, baby. It was the lesser of two evils... you'll never hear Mr. Sandman, so you'll never understand... Lamont, what's his name?"
"Gaara."
"What the hell? That's not name!" She sighed. "Well, even if no one else loves him, he's got himself. Goodbye, baby," she murmured, kissing the infant's forehead. She turned her head towards her husband and whispered something that Chiyo and the doctor didn't quite catch, and immediately wished that they had, for the Kazekage gasped.
"You remembered?"
"I'd never forget your name, Lamont. I love you. And, Chiyo?"
"Yes?"
Rosemary lifted both her hands off of her bed and flipped up her middle finger on both of them. "Up yours, Granny!"
And then she died.
And so Gaara of the Sand came into the world.
